Combination heating and cooling unit



March 8, 1960 E. SEELEY COMBINATION HEATING AND COOLING UNIT Filed Feb. 21, 1957 United Sttes 2,927,780 F atentecl Mar. 8,. i960 2,927,780 7 COMBINATION HEATING AND COOLING UNIT Lauren E. Seeley, Durham, N.H., assignor to The H. B. Smith Company, Incorporated, Westfield, Mass, :1 cor-v poration of Massachusetts Application February 21, 1957, Serial No. 641,505 1 Claim. (Cl. 257-133) This invention relates to heat exchange apparatus and more especially to apparatus for domestic use.

The principal object of the invention is to provide means for converting a radiator from cold weather heating to hot weather cooling. Other objects are to provide means especially suitable for quickly and easily converting a baseboard radiator from cold weather heating to hot weather cooling without reducing its efiiciency as a heater, without detracting from its appearance and without materially increasing the cost of its construction and/ or installation. Another object is to provide means for taking the warm air from the room at one or more places and returning it cooled and dehumidified at such other places as will be most conducive to the comfort of the occupants. Another object is to provide means of variable capacity so that cooling may be adjusted to suit the requirements. Another object is to provide air circulating means for use with a radiator when the latter is to be used for cooling, which air circulating means may easily be placed in a position for use without requiring the services of a mechanic or the making of mechanical connections, and which may easily be removed for storage when not in use or optionally a circulator which may be permanently installed, for example in the basement or an'adjacent utility room.

As herein illustrated, a housing is placed about a radiator-unit so as to enclose and form a casing about it, which has at its top a plurality of openings forming a grill through which heat rising from the radiator escapes and an opening at the bottom or base through which cold air at the floor level may enter beneath the radiator, thereby maintaining a circulation of air in the room by convection. In accordance with the invention, the bottom opening is provided with closure elements which are operable to close a part or all of this opening, a cooling fluid is supplied to the radiator and a blower is arranged to supply air under pressure to the base of the housing beneath the radiator therein. The grill at the top may have damper elements for controlling the escape of cooled air therefrom, and for controlling the place of escape. One or more blowers may be employed if desired. The bottomof the housing is. shaped to provide a shallow drip pan for collecting condensate and has a drain through which the condensate may be drawn off. Instead of blower units placed in the room air under pressure may be supplied to the lower part of the housing through suitable conduits extending from the basement or an adjacent utility room, whereupon all of the closure elements at the bottom of the housing will be closed.

- The invention will now be described in greater detail with reference to the accompanying drawings wherein:

Fig. l is a perspective view of one corner of a room next to the floor showing a wall-type heat exchanger running continuously along the walls in both directions from the corner, redesigned for use also as a cooler and being provided, as shown, with a blower unit placed opposite a section thereof;

Fig. 2 is a vertical section to somewhat larger scale taken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 1;

Fig. 3 is a diagrammatic view of a permanentinstallation of the device shown in Figs. 1 and 2;

Fig. 4 is a vertical section of a conventional radiator unit modified to provide for its use as a cooler with a circulating unit associated therewith; and

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of several units connected to a heating unit and a refrigerating unit with valves for switching the system from heating to cooling and vice versa.

Referring to the drawings, there is shown in Fig. 1, a baseboard air conditioner consisting of sections 10, extending along the base of a room, from a corner thereof, in contact with the respective walls 14- and 16 and the floor 18. The sections 10 are connected at the: corner to provide a continuous conduit and may be duplicated along the other two sides of the room by corresponding sections connected at the several corners... Each section is in the form of a hollow housing or" conduit 20 having a bottom wall 22, a top wall 24, a: rear wall 26 and a front wall 28 arranged more or less: rectangularly. The bottom wall 22 rests upon the floor 18, the back wall 26 bears against the wall along which it extends, the top wall 24 has inwardly extending hori zontal and inclined portions and the front wall 28 is. substantially perpendicular to the floor. The housing is; made up of sheet metal, as herein shown in two parts, the bottom wall 22 and the back wall 26 being made integral and the top wall 24 and front wall 28 being made integral. Along the inclined portion of the top wall there are distributed a plurality of regularly spaced openings 30 forming a grill which may be partially or wholly closed by dampers 32 hinged at 34 for swinging movement from a position covering the openings to a position uncovering the openings. The dampers are normally held open by springs and closed by lever arms fastened to the lower ends of spindles joumaled in the top, the upper projecting ends of which have on them knobs 35 which may be grasped to rotate the spindles. Near the bottom of the housing the front wall 28 is' cut away continuously to provide'an elongate opening 36. The bottom 22 has along its forward edge an upstanding flange 38 which lies in the same plane as the front wall and opposite the lower edge thereof, forming the lower side of the elongate bottom opening 36. Mounted on the inner side of the front wall there are closure plates 40 which are arranged to be lowered from positions above the bottom opening 36 to positions in which they will close the opening 36, as illustrated dia-- grammatically in Fig. 3. Slots 42 are provided at ap-; propriate places along the front wall through whicln project handles 44 which are connected to the closure.- plates 40 inside of the front wall for the purpose of elevating and/or lowering the plates as desired. Frictional engagement of the handles with the slots is sufficient to hold the plates elevated, however, it is to be understood that other appropriate means in the form of spring elements, latches, or the like, may be employed for holding the plates securely in elevation. In their lower position the lower edges of the plates bear against the bottom 22 just inside of the flange 38. The plates 40 are distributed lengthwise of the housing so that portionsof the opening 36may be closed and other portions kept open for purposes which will appear hereinafter.

Within the housing 20 there is mounted a heat exchanger 46 consisting, for example of spaced, parallel conductor pipes 48 to which are fastened a plurality of spaced thin, fiat, radiating fins 50. The heat exchanger is supported therein in any conventional fashion, usually by means of hooks or brackets fastened to the back wall 26 or by feet resting on the bottom 22, so as to be ap proximately midway between the top and bottom of the housing, thereby to provide a continuous conduit 52 above the heat exchanger and a continuous conduit 54 below the heat exchanger. The housing and heat e changer are so portioned that the top of the exchanger is below the top opening 30 and the bottom of the exchanger is above the top edge of the lower opening 36.

During the heating season hot water from a boiler 37 (Fig. is circulated by a pump P and connecting conductor pipes '39 through the heat exchangers, of which there may be several, for different rooms and through the ordinary phenomenon of convection, cold air next to the floor of each room enters through the opening 36, into the conductor space 54 below the heat exchanger, is warmed as it rises upwardly through the exchanger and is discharged through the top openings 3% at the top of the housing. Thus the apparatus normally operates in a conventional manner to afford efficient heating.

During the season when it is desirable to have cooling the heating system is shut down, and valves V in the pipes 39 my be thrown to cause the water in the system to pass through a refrigerating unit 41, whereby cold water is then circulated through the heat exchangers in the several rooms. The circulating system just described is by way of illustration and is not intended to be limiting.

To attain the maximum benefit of the cooling all but one or two of the plates 40 are lowered so as to close the base openi' g 36 along most of its length. Opposite the open sections there may be placed blowers 56. As shown,

a single blower is placed opposite the back section and may suffice for the entire room. The blower has a fan 58 driven by a motor M, an intake conduit 60 through which air may be drawn from the room and a discharge conduit 62 through which the air drawn into the unit may be discharged therefrom through the open section of the closed opening 36 into the conductor 54 below the heat exchanger. Thus the air at the lower part of the room is forcibly driven upwardly through the heat exchanger and discharged from the top of the housing through the openings 30. For a small room one blower may sufiice however for larger rooms and for locales where the temperature and humidity are high several blower units may be employed.

As pointed out above, the dampers 32 may like the plate 46 be comprised of several independent lengths so that selected ones of the openings may be left open or closed at will, thus enabling control of the place where cooled air is discharged.

The dehumidification of the air by cooling of course results in condensation and this collects in the bottom 22 being prevented from flowing out of the housing by the flange 38 along the front edge thereof. For the purpose of disposal a down spout or drain 64 may be provided at one or more places along the bottom 22 to carry off the condensate as it accumulates.

The blower units 56 (Figs. 1, 2 and 4) are portable and, as shown herein, are placed on the floor next to the housing opposite an open portion of the base opening when it is desired to cool the air in the room. When not inuse they may be removed and stored until needed again. If the presence of blower units in the room or the noise of their operation is objectionable a blower may be installed in the basement or an adjacent utility room and air supplied by means of a suitable conduit extending therefrom to the lower part ofthe housing. Thus as shown in Fig. 3, there may be provided at the back of the housing one or more conduits 66 which extend rearwardly and downwardly through the wall for connection by a suitable duct to a large capacity blower 68 located in the basement. When thus set up the front wall closure plates may all be lowered. A down flow grill 67 located in the floor in some part ofthe room for taking air out of the room down to the blower 68 should be provided.

While the invention as described herein is applied to a baseboard radiator it is not restricted to such application but can be used with individual radiator units without departing from the spirit of the invention. Thus as shown in Pig. 4, there is a conventional multichamber radiator over which is placed a. sheet metal housing 70 having a grill 72 at the top and a base opening 74 near the bottom opposite which may be placed a blower 76.

The housing in this case may be simplified by omitting the damper and closure plates at the top and bottom respectively, because of the shortness of the unit. As in the baseboard design however a, drip pan must, be provided to catch the condensate, accordingly the bottom of the housing has a flange 78 at its forwardedge.

From the foregoing it is at once apparent that a very economical and simple cooling. system is afforded without increasing the cost of the heating equipment materially and that the capacity of the unit can be easily changed for different size installations and climates at a minimum cost.

it should be understood that the present disclosure is for the purpose of illustration only and that this invention includes all modifications and equivalents which fall within the scope of the appended claim.

I claim:

In combination with a heat exchanger of the type disposed aiong the baseboard of a room, parallel to and spaced from the floor, a hollow elongate sheet metal housing fastened to the baseboard so as to enclose the entire length of the heat exchanger, said housing having a rear wall rising from the fioor behind the exchanger, 21 top wall extending forwardly over the top of the exchanger, a front wall descending from the top wall parallel to the rear wall and close to the front of the exchanger, said front wall terminating at its lower edge along a line just below the bottom of the exchanger and spaced from the floor, and a bottom wall resting on the floor having an upstanding flange along its front edge lying in the plane of the front wall, the space between the upper edge of the flange and the lower edge of the front wall defining a horizontally disposed opening, at the base of the housing, lengthwise of the exchanger, through which air may enter into-the space beneath the exchanger, a plurality of horizontally spaced openings in the top wall above the exchanger through which air may flow from the top of the exchanger by natural convection or forced draft, a plurality of dampers, one for each opening, by means of which the openings may selectively be opened or closed to provide for Supplying air uniformly throughout the room or at selected places therein, a plurality of sheet metal base plates mounted on the inner side of the front wall, above the base opening, said plates having knobs extending through slots in the front wall by means of which they may selectively be lowered to close part or the entire length of said opening at the base of the housing, portable blower units spaced along the exterior of the sheet metal housing and provided with discharge ducts communicating with the openings formed by the base plates, each base plate being designed, when elevated, to provide an opening of a size to receive the discharge port of said portable blower unit placed next to the base of the housing so that air may be forced into the housing at one or more places while other portions are closed to provide for forced circulation of air upwardly through the exchanger to the top openings, said bottom wall and flange constituting a shallow receptacle lengthwise of the housing for receiving condensate from the exchanger and having one orniore outlets through which the condensate may be drained, and means for optionally supplying a heating fluid or cooling fluid to the exchanger.

References Cited in'thc file of this patent UNITED STATES. PATENTS 593,737 Corbin et al Nov. 16, 1897 1,559,213 Winterbottom et a1 Oct. 27, 1925 1,788,823 Callahan Jan. 13, 1931 1,845,243 Cox Feb. 16,1932 1,945,379 Roesch Ian. 30, 1934 2,724,579 Christiansson Nov. 22, 1955 

